This invention relates generally to ornamental electronic jewelry. More particularly, this invention relates to ornamental electronic jewelry utilizing a bundle of fiber-optic strands which are directly connected to a light emitting diode where in turn, the light emitting diode and the self contained battery are encased in a nonconductive ornamental housing. In a preferred embodiment, the electronic jewelry comprises an earring.
Electronic jewelry is well known in the art and has recently become very popular. Most of this jewelry utilizes some means of illumination including a light bulb or a light emitting diode (LED). For example, illuminated jewelry having an LED attached to a hearing aid type battery and a clip or similar structure for attaching the jewelry to the wearer is disclosed in U.S Pat. No. 4,237,525. Other examples of illuminated jewelry incorporating an LED and a battery (typically a self contained hearing aid type battery) are disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,866,035; 4,009,381; 4,076,976; 4,309,743; 4,337,504 and 4,459,645. Other less pertinent examples of illustated jewelry are found in U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,384,740; 3,790,775; 3,814,926; 4,215,388 and 4,271,457. Many of the foregoing less pertinent examples utilize a light bulb rather than an LED to provide the means for illumination.
While LED illuminated jewelry devices are advantageous from the standpoint of requiring little power expenditure, having an extremely small size and being quite light weight, there is a perceived need to provide illuminated electronic jewelry which is even more attractive and has a markedly distinct and novel appearance relative to the prior art LED type illuminated ornamental jewelry. Such highly stylized and distinctive electronic illuminated jewelry has been disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,186,425. Iis patent describes a piece of jewelry which comprises an elongated length of fiber-optic material, prewound into a multilooped coil and cut at one radial point, each open end of the loop being clamped to a shell containing a source of illumination in such a manner that the cut ends of the various loops are exposed to the source of illumination whereupon the individual loops extending from the shell are cut at varying lengths to present a jewelry piece which clings to the wearer by reason of the prewound stresses of the loops. Because of the use of the fiber-optic strands, the jewelry disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,186,425 will emit multiple dots of lights as the light is transmitted to the fiber-optic material to the unclamped ends thereof. As is well known, fiber-optic strands act as a conduit for light and will transport light from a light source through the strands to the ends thereof. It will thus be appreciated that the use of fiber-optic strands in jewelry present a limitless number of novel configurations and a multitude of attractive and distinctive jewelry configurations.
While suitable for its intended purposes, the illuminated jewelry described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,186,425 has a somewhat complicated structure including the use of a bulky housing, a plurality of separate wires, conventional light bulbs and tape. Thus, with the ever increasing popularity of illuminated electronic jewelry and the distinctive novelty of fiber-optic strands, there is a need for improved electronic illuminated jewelry utilizing fiber-optic strands with the jewelry being inexpensive to manufacture and purchase, light weight and compact and attractive.